Importance and Applications of Robotic and Autonomous Systems (RAS) in Railway Maintenance Sector: A Review

Abstract

Maintenance, which is critical for safe, reliable, quality, and cost-effective service, plays a dominant role in the railway industry. Therefore, this paper examines the importance and applications of Robotic and Autonomous Systems (RAS) in railway maintenance. More than 70 research publications, which are either in practice or under investigation describing RAS developments in the railway maintenance, are analysed. It has been found that the majority of RAS developed are for rolling-stock maintenance, followed by railway track maintenance. Further, it has been found that there is growing interest and demand for robotics and autonomous systems in the railway maintenance sector, which is largely due to the increased competition, rapid expansion and ever-increasing expenses.

Robotic Railway Multi-Sensing and Profiling Unit Based on Artificial Intelligence and Data Fusion

“…The system employs an alternating current field measurement (ACFM) sensor combined with a rule-based expert system. The solution is dedicated for collecting a single type of data, only detecting cracks, and not inspecting railway gauges, for example; Only 3% of the maintenance operations in railway tunnels (including subway) are recently subject of robotic activities [ 45 ]—therefore, the benefits of such a solution; Robotic autonomous systems have been employed mostly for cleaning purposes [ 46 ], rolling stock fluid servicing [ 47 ]; Killian, K [ 48 ] proposes a vision system based on wayside sensors for inspecting integrity of train wheels and rails (no mobility involved here for the automatic measuring system); Railway catenary and power line automatic inspection are proposed via a system with laser beams and imagistic analysis simultaneously for four wires [ 49 ]—the solution is intended to be mounted on the engine of a train and is operational for speeds up to 90 km/h. No other parameters are envisaged to be measured; Railway robotic inspection in tracks maintenance operations: machine vision and classification algorithms are used to detect and/or localize cracks in the rolling surface of tracks.…”

“…Only 3% of the maintenance operations in railway tunnels (including subway) are recently subject of robotic activities [ 45 ]—therefore, the benefits of such a solution;…”

Localisation and Navigation Framework for Autonomous Railway Robotic Inspection and Repair System

“…Autonomous vehicles (AV) have provided lots of benefits to the railway network such as decreasing the track downtime and ensuring proper inspection and repair work. In [4],…”

Investigating Precision and Accuracy of a Robotic Inspection and Repair System

“…Using robotic system for rolling stock maintenance can provide financial advantages [1] or a specially designed train with sensors such as New Measurement Train (NMT) [2] can reduce the inspection time by a big margin. Though robotics and autonomous systems are used in railway sector for more than a decade, most of them are used in rolling stock maintenance and most of the system are without manipulation [3].…”